


if you hear a bullet go by

by dalyeau



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Shippy Gen, implied Jean/Mikasa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalyeau/pseuds/dalyeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why are you still here?” Levi asks one morning over his cup of tea. </p><p>They’re outside, and he’s still wearing his sleeping clothes while Eren does push-ups in his poor excuse of a garden. Sweat runs down his back and Levi’s eyes follow its path indifferently. <i>Gross</i>, he thinks.</p><p>“Why haven’t you kicked me out?” Eren shoots back, panting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you hear a bullet go by

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: if it helps your imagination, [this](http://40.media.tumblr.com/5f12494ac3493ec6d16c899dbd154aa8/tumblr_n668rfBDH21rhtot1o1_1280.png) is how i picture longhaired eren in this fic. this is not my art and it's obviously not art for this fic, i just saw it and thought it'd be nice to link to it for imagery purposes. credit to the artist.

His shoulders are the first thing Levi notices. They’ve gotten broader and they’re not as tense as they used to be, back when the weight of humanity used to rest upon them. He walks over to Levi carrying himself with that lazy ease that only young reckless people are capable of, and he adjusts the scarf wrapped around his neck as he fights a smile. Levi can see his lips twitching with effort before they give up and curve upwards so high that he gets a glimpse of the white of his teeth. 

Then, other differences catch Levi’s eye: the longer hair, the hint of stubble. Sharper cheekbones and a stronger jaw - the cutting angles of a face that has finally gotten rid of childhood’s softness. 

Not that Eren Jaeger was ever soft. 

The eyes are the same, though. That weird shade of green lit up by passion. Passion for what exactly, Levi has no idea - he can’t remember Eren ever showing interest for something other than killing titans. 

And then, the horror.

He’s also gotten taller. 

Levi refuses to crane his neck to look at him, this kid he hasn’t seen in half a decade, and stares indifferently at his shoulder instead when they’re close enough that Eren has stopped in front of him.

“Captain,” he says, as if no time has passed at all and Levi still holds some kind of authority over him, “can I have a word? Well, several, actually.”

His voice is deeper, but almost gentle. 

“If you must,” Levi replies, still looking at his shoulder.

 

 

Eren used to be the very definition of sloppy, something that more than once pissed Levi off to no end. He was clumsy, with no real sense of awareness about himself and the space around him, all long limbs and sudden movements that lacked any sort of grace. Levi used to wonder how he was even able to use the 3D maneuver gear, let alone how he managed to make it to the top ten of his class. 

That’s one of the things that hasn’t changed. The moment they step into Levi’s place, Eren trips on the carpet and holds onto Levi to keep from falling. He shakes him off half-heartedly, telling him to open his fucking eyes and not destroy his house, he’s been keeping it in order for four years and he’s very determined to keep it that way. 

“M’sorry,” Eren mumbles, straightening up and looking around him. Then, tentatively: “It’s a nice place.”

“Of course it’s nice,” Levi says. 

He knows that people offer tea or food to guests, but Levi can’t be arsed making tea for Eren and he’s run out of food. He was going to pay a visit to the market that day before Eren threw himself back into his life unannounced. 

They sit on opposites sides of the table and Eren fidgets with his scarf though he doesn’t seem to realise he’s doing it. He’s still looking around, eyes scanning and curious and his lips parted a little. 

“I never thought…” he trails off, unsure.

“Go ahead,” Levi encourages him.

“I never thought you’d do this when the war ended.”

It’s not the first time he’s heard that. Levi crosses his arms. 

“What did you think I was going to do?”

“I don’t know. I mean-” Eren looks at him right in the eye, “-I thought maybe you’d be like me. You’d go explore the outside world and…”

“I did explore.” He saw the fields of sand and the mountains of fire and the neverending water. It took a year and it was beautiful like nothing he’d ever seen, and unbearably dull at the same time. “I saw the world and now I’m here.”

“Why?”

Levi gets up and decides to make some tea, in the end. Maybe drinking it will shut Eren up for a couple of precious minutes.

“Because I wanted to. I explored, I got bored, I found this place and it seemed just slightly less shitty than others so I got myself a shitty house where to live the rest of my shitty life. It’s peaceful.”

It’s a nightmare. 

Sometimes he dreams he’s killing titans. 

“Alright,” Eren says, strangely timid. “It’s not a shitty house though.”

Levi hands him a cup of tea.

 

 

 

He’s really not surprised when Eren stutters a question about staying in his home for the night and promises him that he’ll be gone by morning. 

“You’re cleaning the room before you leave,” Levi orders harshly, but throws a spare pillow at his face anyway and Eren catches it with a hopeful smile. 

He isn’t, in fact, gone by morning.

 

 

 

Three months have passed and he still isn’t gone.

 

 

 

“Why are you still here?” Levi asks one morning over his cup of tea. 

They’re outside, and he’s still wearing his sleeping clothes while Eren does push-ups in his poor excuse of a garden. Sweat runs down his back and Levi’s eyes follow its path indifferently. _Gross_ , he thinks.

“Why haven’t you kicked me out?” Eren shoots back, panting. 

Levi knows that the brat (at twenty-three he’s still as much of a brat as he was at fifteen) is expecting some kind of revealing response. Something about how Levi doesn’t mind his company so much, or that he’s nice to have around even if just for cleaning purposes. He lowers his cup of tea and thinks of not replying at all.

“Because I don’t really care if you’re here or not,” he answers honestly. 

Eren stops, mid push-up. Then he does two more and stands up, wipes the sweat on his chest with the shirt he’d taken off. His face is blank but there’s something underneath it that looks a lot like understanding and it scares the shit out of Levi like no titan ever did.

“I see,” is all Eren says. Then he grins, wide and sincere, and laughs when he takes a step forward and Levi automatically takes a step back to get away from him and his -frankly disgusting- sweaty body. “I’m taking a shower and then off to the market. Apples or oranges?”

Levi thinks about it.

“Apples,” he says.

 

 

 

“What happened to your friends?”

It’s been five months and it’s the first time it’s ever occurred to him that Eren is here living with him instead of exploring the world with Arlert and Ackerman like the three of them always swore they would. Some remote part of him hopes that Ackerman hasn’t died or something - she was quiet and useful, something that Levi always appreciated. 

Eren swallows his spoonful of soup and looks at him, surprised at first, then strangely fond. It makes Levi feel itchy and uncomfortable, but he merely stares back.

“Armin is somewhere across the ocean, helping with investigations,” Eren says, tracing circles on the soup with his spoon. If he notices that it’s taken Levi almost half a year to ask that question, he doesn’t show it. “Mikasa is with Jean training soldiers.”

Levi doesn’t ask what they need soldiers for. It’s humanity. Soldiers are always going to be needed, even if it’s just to wait for a war that will never come. Sometimes he feels as if he’s one of them, waiting in a house with a nice carpet and tea cups of porcelain instead of a battlefield. He still has his 3d maneuver gear in his closet. Once in a while he opens its doors and stares at it until his hands are trembling with need. 

“Why aren’t you with them?”

Eren shrugs, and Levi knows how to read in that simple gesture what he doesn't bother saying - that there's so much time three people can spend together before they want different things and part ways.

"I like it here. It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

Levi almost, almost smiles. But he can’t remember how to and in the end he just purses his lips.

“You’re such a shit liar, Eren.”

Eren smiles bright enough for the both of them.

 

 

 

His hair is now even longer than his titan form’s used to be, tied messily against the back of his neck most days. Today it's down though, pushed behind Eren's ears, and Levi furrows his brows at it in disapproval. He throws a pair of scissors at him and Eren catches them in the air with a gasp of surprise.

“Get a haircut. It’s offensive.” 

“Scissors are sharp, you know that, right?”

“Come here, brat.”

Eren’s hair is soft as silk. It didn’t use to be that way, until Levi insisted that he washed it at least once every two days if he wanted to keep living under his roof. He runs his hands through it, thick strands incredibly dark against his pale fingers, and starts cutting while Eren pleads for mercy, asking Levi not to mess up. Levi is tempted, but he just cuts it the same way he remembers from when they met. 

“There," he says when it's over, absent-mindedly pressing his thumb against the back of Eren's neck, on the spot where his long, tied hair used to rest. "That’s better.”

“You need a haircut too,” Eren says, full of hope.

“Don’t even think about it.”

 

 

Erwin visits, once or twice a year. He comes one rainy morning of April wearing a jacket lacking a sleeve for the arm that isn't there. Eren is the one opening the door, while Levi reads. 

“Levi!” He calls. It had taken him a solid month and a half to stop calling him Captain. “Commander Erwin is here.”

“I’m not your superior anymore, Eren,” a gentle voice replies behind him, not half as loud or annoying.

“Oh, sorry. Old habits, I guess.”

Levi closes his book, takes off his reading glasses, and says, “Just get the fuck in here.”

Erwin stays for a week, in which Eren leaves to give them time alone or something as equally stupid. Levi has no idea where he vanished to, but his backpack is gone and the bed is made the next morning when he wakes up and Eren isn’t in the kitchen munching on the fruit they buy together at the market. 

He’s gotten older, his former commander. There are wrinkles next to his eyes that didn’t use to be there and there’s a tired edge to his voice. 

“You still blame yourself for all those deaths,” Levi says on the third day, while they’re both reading in silence. 

“Yes,” Erwin replies, brutally honest in his simplicity. “I guess that makes two of us.” Levi doesn’t look up from his book. “Is Eren Jaeger living with you?”

“Yes,” Levi echoes. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

Erwin smiles, exhausted and broken.

 

 

 

He dreams of Petra. Hers is the face he sees the most, covered in blood and staring at him from where her body rests against a tree. Other times it’s nameless soldiers whose hands Levi grasps until all the life drains out of them. 

He always wakes up covered in sweat, his heart pounding hard against his ribs, panting and with a white-knuckled grip on his sheets. 

Eren walks into his room as if it was three in the afternoon and not five in the morning. 

“Are you alright? You were screaming.”

Levi nods and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. 

“Go back to sleep, Eren.”

He doesn’t. He sits on Levi’s bed, yawning and rubbing at his eyes, and says, “Have you ever seen waterfalls before? They are beautiful. Sort of scary, but really nice.”

Eren talks about waterfalls and impossibly tall mountains and a pink sea, and Levi listens. 

 

 

 

He’s cutting his hair again; it’s been only three months since his last haircut but it grows fast and wild. Eren protests and whines but in the end he obediently sits and watches as locks of brown hair fall on his chest and shoulders.

“Are you ever actually leaving?” Levi asks, resisting the urge to yawn because he and Eren stayed up late at night cleaning his place. 

“Are you kicking me out?” Eren replies, righfully sure of himself after he's usurped humanity’s strongest’s house for over a year. 

“You can stay. I guess you’re not bad to have around, even if just for cleaning purposes. Now, stay still.”

He hears, rather than see, Eren’s smile.

**Author's Note:**

> more to come of this, i am almost positive. but i just really wanted to write my headcanon for post-war fic in which eren moonwalks into levi's shitty ptsd life and stays.


End file.
